Meet Them Where They Are: Building Relationships Through Equity | RR337

Janice Porter: 00:00:02

Hi everyone. Welcome to relationships rule.

Janice Porter: 00:00:06

Today, I'm excited to be joined by Celeste Warren, an

Janice Porter: 00:00:09

internationally recognized Diversity Equity and Inclusion

Janice Porter: 00:00:13

leader and the author of The Truth about equity, what it

Janice Porter: 00:00:17

really is, what it isn't, and why everyone wins when we get it

Janice Porter: 00:00:21

right. Celeste has her own consulting firm, Celeste Warren

Janice Porter: 00:00:25

consulting, and she's helping organizations of all sizes

Janice Porter: 00:00:28

reshape how they think about equity. So we're going to take a

Janice Porter: 00:00:32

look at breaking down what dei really means for small business

Janice Porter: 00:00:35

owners, solopreneurs and entrepreneurs alike. We'll talk

Janice Porter: 00:00:38

about what shifted in the cultural conversation,

Janice Porter: 00:00:41

conversation, especially south of the border, because, as you

Janice Porter: 00:00:44

know, I'm in Canada and why equity is still a relationship

Janice Porter: 00:00:48

building tool, not just a corporate checkbox. So whether

Janice Porter: 00:00:52

you've been unsure how dei fits into your business, or you're

Janice Porter: 00:00:55

ready to lead with more clarity and intention, I hope that

Janice Porter: 00:00:59

Celeste will bring some light to that fact. And welcome. Welcome

Janice Porter: 00:01:03

to the show, Celeste.

Celeste Warren: 00:01:04

Well, thank you. Janice, thank you for the

Celeste Warren: 00:01:06

invitation, and I hope I bring some light too.

Janice Porter: 00:01:09

Oh, you will. I'm no doubt I know that you spent

Janice Porter: 00:01:12

30 years inside a global corporation. What inspired you

Janice Porter: 00:01:17

to focus your next chapter on helping a broader range of

Janice Porter: 00:01:20

organizations, including small business lead with equity.

Celeste Warren: 00:01:24

Well, I thought that with everything that I had

Celeste Warren: 00:01:27

learned, actually, you know, with different companies, it was

Celeste Warren: 00:01:32

close to four decades working across different companies, and

Celeste Warren: 00:01:37

I felt that I had a lot to offer and learning what I learned over

Celeste Warren: 00:01:43

the course of those decades and and I wanted to be able to share

Celeste Warren: 00:01:47

the information with a broader group of people and really just

Celeste Warren: 00:01:52

enhance the platform that I was on and was given to me through

Celeste Warren: 00:01:59

God's grace, really, and just working through this, and it's a

Celeste Warren: 00:02:02

passion of mine as well. There were so many people who were

Celeste Warren: 00:02:07

just not feeling or understanding what was happening

Celeste Warren: 00:02:11

in this space. They were getting misinformation and

Celeste Warren: 00:02:14

disinformation. And so I felt just that I had to, I had to get

Celeste Warren: 00:02:21

out there and really talk about what was going on and really

Celeste Warren: 00:02:25

share with individuals and help them to really maneuver and be

Celeste Warren: 00:02:30

successful in their efforts around diversity, equity and

Celeste Warren: 00:02:34

inclusion in this complexing environment.

Janice Porter: 00:02:37

So when did you start your own consulting

Janice Porter: 00:02:40

company. I just started it in July. Oh, so as I would say,

Janice Porter: 00:02:45

Mazel Tov, that's great. Okay, so, but you wrote this book, and

Janice Porter: 00:02:52

I know that you've written another book previously, so tell

Janice Porter: 00:02:55

us a story between that one, and then coming to this one, because

Janice Porter: 00:02:59

it's kind of, I like it. You shared it with me,

Celeste Warren: 00:03:02

that's right? Um, well, the first book was

Celeste Warren: 00:03:04

called How to be a diversity and inclusion ambassador, right?

Celeste Warren: 00:03:08

Okay. Wrote that book back in 2022 and the reason I wrote that

Celeste Warren: 00:03:13

book was basically I in my travels, both internally within

Celeste Warren: 00:03:17

the organization and then externally, at different

Celeste Warren: 00:03:20

conferences, inevitably, there would always be one person, at

Celeste Warren: 00:03:24

least one person, that would walk up to me and say,

Celeste Warren: 00:03:27

afterwards and say, you know, Celeste, I'm not a C suite

Celeste Warren: 00:03:31

leader. I'm not a leader, I'm not a manager or a supervisor. I

Celeste Warren: 00:03:35

don't supervise people. I'm just me. I'm an individual

Celeste Warren: 00:03:38

contributor, and I just don't feel like I role in being able

Celeste Warren: 00:03:43

to change the environment and and be an ambassador for

Celeste Warren: 00:03:47

diversity inclusion, like you talk about. And I just wanted to

Celeste Warren: 00:03:52

be able to answer that question for a variety of different

Celeste Warren: 00:03:56

people, because every time I would get that question, I would

Celeste Warren: 00:04:01

sit there and I would talk with the individual, and we would

Celeste Warren: 00:04:03

have a really good conversation. And I felt that more people

Celeste Warren: 00:04:07

needed to hear that message, and so I wrote that book in 2022 and

Celeste Warren: 00:04:14

I purposely did not talk about equity, because at the time,

Celeste Warren: 00:04:19

even though there were a lot of people that were passionate

Celeste Warren: 00:04:21

around diversity and inclusion, they understood diversity, they

Celeste Warren: 00:04:25

understood inclusion, but equity was something that was just a

Celeste Warren: 00:04:29

little bit more complex, even for the folks that were very

Celeste Warren: 00:04:33

passionate about diversity and inclusion. And so I specifically

Celeste Warren: 00:04:37

did not talk about equity in the book, and I even talked about

Celeste Warren: 00:04:40

and said, I'm not going to focus the attention on equity. We're

Celeste Warren: 00:04:44

going to focus on diversity and inclusion. And so fast forward

Celeste Warren: 00:04:49

three years later, and during the campaign for the

Celeste Warren: 00:04:55

administration in the United States and all the different.

Celeste Warren: 00:05:00

Voting. All the different votes in different countries that were

Celeste Warren: 00:05:04

happening, and especially in 2024 there were a lot of

Celeste Warren: 00:05:11

opportunities for people to vote and elevate their voice. And

Celeste Warren: 00:05:14

what we found was there was this pendulum that swung to a more

Celeste Warren: 00:05:20

conservative voice winning. A lot of these are these

Celeste Warren: 00:05:23

elections. And so as a result of that, there was not just in the

Celeste Warren: 00:05:29

United States, although it's more pronounced in the United

Celeste Warren: 00:05:31

States, but there was just this, this misinformation around what

Celeste Warren: 00:05:35

diversity and inclusion was and what equity was. And I just felt

Celeste Warren: 00:05:40

like there had to be this same voice in this forest of

Celeste Warren: 00:05:46

misinformation, and I just felt compelled to write the book, and

Celeste Warren: 00:05:50

part of it was therapy as well for me, because I was in the

Celeste Warren: 00:05:53

chief diversity and inclusion officer role for 10 years, and

Celeste Warren: 00:05:57

we had made such progress, Not just within the organization,

Celeste Warren: 00:06:00

but outside of the organization as well, and I just felt like we

Celeste Warren: 00:06:05

were just getting beat up, and all of the hard work that was

Celeste Warren: 00:06:11

done over the last year, although all of those years that

Celeste Warren: 00:06:14

it was just being just taken away. And I, you know, I almost

Celeste Warren: 00:06:20

took it personally for for I can understand that, yeah, for sure,

Celeste Warren: 00:06:24

you know, I you're thinking about all the work that you had

Celeste Warren: 00:06:27

done and and what was happening to it. And so I just felt like I

Celeste Warren: 00:06:31

had to write this book, and really specifically this time,

Celeste Warren: 00:06:34

talk about equity, because I had already talked about diversity

Janice Porter: 00:06:38

before. Well, I do remember when dei first sort

Janice Porter: 00:06:41

of reared its head, and I was like, what's that? And, you

Janice Porter: 00:06:45

know, like an I was, you know, I was working on my own, I wasn't

Janice Porter: 00:06:48

in a company, still, when this all sort of came to light, but I

Janice Porter: 00:06:51

remember a friend of mine in Minnesota was working for a

Janice Porter: 00:06:56

woman who was a big advocate of Dei, and her whole business was

Janice Porter: 00:07:01

around that, and so I sort of learned through her and and then

Janice Porter: 00:07:08

it I would so I understood, just like everybody else, I could,

Janice Porter: 00:07:12

understood diversity, what that meant, and I understood

Janice Porter: 00:07:15

inclusion, but tell me more. Tell me about equity. What does

Janice Porter: 00:07:19

that mean? And then I want to come back to how all of the work

Janice Porter: 00:07:24

that you did, you know, got the plug, got pulled, and everything

Janice Porter: 00:07:28

started to fall apart. And I straighten us out on all of

Janice Porter: 00:07:33

that, of how this, where do you start from now? Like, okay, but

Janice Porter: 00:07:37

let's talk about equity first, because I want to know more the

Janice Porter: 00:07:40

truth about equity.

Celeste Warren: 00:07:42

The truth about equity is, and I like to use the

Celeste Warren: 00:07:45

analogy of the cartoon, the illustration that everyone has

Celeste Warren: 00:07:48

seen, where the first it's three illustrations. The first

Celeste Warren: 00:07:53

illustration, you see three people. They're standing on one

Celeste Warren: 00:07:58

rock, and there's a fence in front of them, and the person on

Celeste Warren: 00:08:02

the right, even with the one rock, still can't see over the

Celeste Warren: 00:08:06

fence. The person in the middle with the one rock can barely see

Celeste Warren: 00:08:10

over the fence, and the person on the left can clearly see over

Celeste Warren: 00:08:14

the fence with the one rock, okay, in the middle. So that's

Celeste Warren: 00:08:18

equality. Basically. That's basically you gave everyone one

Celeste Warren: 00:08:22

rock, and you gave them all the same thing. And so everyone

Celeste Warren: 00:08:25

should be good, but obviously everyone can't see over the

Celeste Warren: 00:08:29

fence. In the middle of illustration, the person on the

Celeste Warren: 00:08:33

right has been given two additional rocks, so now they

Celeste Warren: 00:08:36

have three. They can see over the fence. The person in the

Celeste Warren: 00:08:38

middle has two rocks now, and they can clearly see over the

Celeste Warren: 00:08:42

fence. The person on the left had one rock before, has only

Celeste Warren: 00:08:47

one rock this time. And now, in my analogy, the rocks are acts

Celeste Warren: 00:08:53

of equity, things that you have to do so people can see over the

Celeste Warren: 00:08:57

fence, so they can have equal access to opportunities and the

Celeste Warren: 00:09:01

fence is what I call those isms, racism, sexism, homophobia, all

Celeste Warren: 00:09:07

of those things that are more institutionalized and and have

Celeste Warren: 00:09:12

been in society and institutions for a while, and it's going to

Celeste Warren: 00:09:16

take a longer term strategy to try to pull them apart, and so

Celeste Warren: 00:09:23

those acts of equity are needed in the meantime to be able to

Celeste Warren: 00:09:28

make sure that people have access to those, those those

Celeste Warren: 00:09:31

those opportunities. Now what's happening in today's world is

Celeste Warren: 00:09:36

the person that was standing on one rock and both of those

Celeste Warren: 00:09:39

illustrations, well, they're turning to their right and

Celeste Warren: 00:09:42

they're saying, Well, why does that person have three rocks?

Celeste Warren: 00:09:45

And why does that person have two rocks, and I only have one.

Celeste Warren: 00:09:48

That's not fair. What you know, what's happening, and they don't

Celeste Warren: 00:09:53

see the fence in front of them, because they've always been able

Celeste Warren: 00:09:57

to see over the fence and see the mountains. And so they don't

Celeste Warren: 00:10:01

understand what that fence means to those persons, to on his

Celeste Warren: 00:10:06

right, they don't know how behaviors manifest themselves in

Celeste Warren: 00:10:11

the workplace, in society, to those individuals, they don't

Celeste Warren: 00:10:15

fully understand it. And so what we have to do as practitioners

Celeste Warren: 00:10:22

and Diversity and Inclusion and Equity ambassadors, we have to

Celeste Warren: 00:10:27

not just put the rocks in place so everyone has access to the

Celeste Warren: 00:10:31

opportunities. We have to tear the fence down and do the more

Celeste Warren: 00:10:34

strategic, long term harder work, and we have to go and have

Celeste Warren: 00:10:39

a conversation with the individual that's standing on

Celeste Warren: 00:10:42

one rock, so they understand that the fence is there, what it

Celeste Warren: 00:10:46

looks like for his colleagues on the right, and then also to make

Celeste Warren: 00:10:50

them active allies. So they get on the boat, get in the boat,

Celeste Warren: 00:10:53

grab an oar and row with us and help us to get upstream. That's

Celeste Warren: 00:10:59

the work that needs to be done, and that's the difference

Celeste Warren: 00:11:02

between equality, where everyone was given the same thing, and

Celeste Warren: 00:11:06

equity, where you give people what they need to be able to

Celeste Warren: 00:11:09

succeed. Because ultimately, why everyone wins. We get to that

Celeste Warren: 00:11:14

third illustration where the rocks are gone, the fence is

Celeste Warren: 00:11:18

torn down, and everybody can see the mountains ahead, and even

Celeste Warren: 00:11:22

the person that was standing on one rock in the first two

Celeste Warren: 00:11:25

illustrations, they can see a broader view because the fence

Celeste Warren: 00:11:30

is gone, and they didn't really even notice that the fence was

Celeste Warren: 00:11:34

up. But it's like, wow, I can see the bottom of the mountain.

Celeste Warren: 00:11:36

I can see, you know, all the other trees and everything else.

Celeste Warren: 00:11:40

So that's the the analogy that I like to use when I try to

Celeste Warren: 00:11:44

explain the difference between what equity is what it isn't.

Celeste Warren: 00:11:47

It's not preferential treatment. Because that's what that

Celeste Warren: 00:11:50

individual was thinking, you have three rocks, you have two

Celeste Warren: 00:11:53

rocks. Yeah, you're getting preferential treatment, and I'm

Celeste Warren: 00:11:55

not. And that's not what it's about.

Janice Porter: 00:11:58

That's a great, great analogy. And you told it

Janice Porter: 00:12:01

very, very well, I could see those pictures. It was great.

Janice Porter: 00:12:04

And it's also then, okay, so the person that's always had the one

Janice Porter: 00:12:10

rock and that's their their baggage, that they have, their

Janice Porter: 00:12:16

frame of reference, their upbringing, all of that stuff,

Janice Porter: 00:12:19

has put that into place where they think, Hey, that's not

Janice Porter: 00:12:22

fair, right? They don't know from anything other than what

Janice Porter: 00:12:27

they know, right? So how much progress had been made before

Janice Porter: 00:12:37

the world started to crumble?

Celeste Warren: 00:12:40

I think a lot of progress had been made. And even

Celeste Warren: 00:12:43

before 2020 and the murder of George Floyd and breonna Taylor

Celeste Warren: 00:12:47

and all of the global protest and that had taken place in the

Celeste Warren: 00:12:53

civil unrest, even before then, we were making a lot of headway.

Celeste Warren: 00:12:59

And people were because, you know, we had me too before that

Celeste Warren: 00:13:03

me too movement and and just all different types of things. There

Celeste Warren: 00:13:07

was xenophobia that was happening in the Asian culture,

Celeste Warren: 00:13:11

the things that were happening to persons with disabilities,

Celeste Warren: 00:13:14

and the homophobia that was happening in the LGBTQ plus

Celeste Warren: 00:13:17

community. So there was a lot of things that were happening that

Celeste Warren: 00:13:20

people were starting to elevate their voices and to say, You

Celeste Warren: 00:13:24

know what? We want to make sure that our voices are heard, that

Celeste Warren: 00:13:28

people understand what it is that we're going through, and

Celeste Warren: 00:13:31

that we put things in place. They're going to help everybody

Celeste Warren: 00:13:34

have access to whatever they aspire to have or do. And I

Celeste Warren: 00:13:39

think that body of work was just really starting to have a, just

Celeste Warren: 00:13:43

this crescendo. And then, at least in the United States, with

Celeste Warren: 00:13:49

the administration and all of the actually, it started,

Celeste Warren: 00:13:53

actually before the administration, because then we

Celeste Warren: 00:13:55

saw that Roe v Wade was overturned in 2023 there the the

Celeste Warren: 00:14:04

ruling against Harvard and University of North Carolina

Celeste Warren: 00:14:09

around student admissions and not being able to use races on

Celeste Warren: 00:14:13

the criterias. So, you know, there were things that were

Celeste Warren: 00:14:17

already starting to happen. It didn't just happen in in

Celeste Warren: 00:14:20

January. But this, this sort of pendulum swinging was, was, was

Celeste Warren: 00:14:27

even a little bit more quickly than probably what's happened

Celeste Warren: 00:14:30

historically. And so now where we find ourselves is a place

Celeste Warren: 00:14:36

where we have to think very strategically and be very

Celeste Warren: 00:14:39

purposeful and very clear around the work that we're doing in

Celeste Warren: 00:14:44

diversity, equity and inclusion, because diversity is simply

Celeste Warren: 00:14:48

differences in people. Diversity means differences, and in this

Celeste Warren: 00:14:53

case, differences in people, those you can see and those you

Celeste Warren: 00:14:56

can't see. And inclusion is where. You surround them with a

Celeste Warren: 00:15:02

culture where they can really, truly contribute to the

Celeste Warren: 00:15:07

organization or to the cause, and really make sure that all of

Celeste Warren: 00:15:12

those differences, different perspectives, skills,

Celeste Warren: 00:15:15

capabilities, identities, that all of those differences can be

Celeste Warren: 00:15:20

leveraged for a common or collective purpose. So

Celeste Warren: 00:15:25

respected, then also, yeah, respected, empowered and

Celeste Warren: 00:15:29

bringing their not just their functional skills and

Celeste Warren: 00:15:33

capabilities, whether they're a marketer or communications

Celeste Warren: 00:15:37

person or engineer or scientist, but also they're bringing their

Celeste Warren: 00:15:41

cultural awareness and experiences as well to the

Celeste Warren: 00:15:44

table, because every This is where you know the importance of

Celeste Warren: 00:15:49

diversity, equity, inclusion from a people and culture

Celeste Warren: 00:15:52

standpoint, but also from a business standpoint as well.

Celeste Warren: 00:15:55

Because if you don't understand your customers, you don't

Celeste Warren: 00:16:00

understand the differences in the customers. You really can't

Celeste Warren: 00:16:04

be effective in whatever products or services that you

Celeste Warren: 00:16:08

are providing, and you have to understand and that that person

Celeste Warren: 00:16:12

on your team that is also a marketer, for example, they're

Celeste Warren: 00:16:16

also could, they also could be bringing their cultural

Celeste Warren: 00:16:19

perspective as well. To say this is why our product or our

Celeste Warren: 00:16:23

service isn't reaching patients or customers in this particular

Celeste Warren: 00:16:28

area, in this demographic, because, in my experience, this

Celeste Warren: 00:16:33

happens or that happens or etc, and it can enhance and create

Celeste Warren: 00:16:37

business innovation to allow businesses to reach markets that

Celeste Warren: 00:16:41

they otherwise may not have been able to reach.

Janice Porter: 00:16:45

Okay, well, that I don't know if I'm on the right

Janice Porter: 00:16:47

track here, but it does make me think about how with

Janice Porter: 00:16:54

advertising, how it feels contrived. Now, sometimes when

Janice Porter: 00:17:00

you see these as and you were in the pharmaceutical industry, and

Janice Porter: 00:17:05

I those are the ones that seem to me to be the worst in the

Janice Porter: 00:17:08

sense of, there's an Asian person, there's a black person,

Janice Porter: 00:17:13

African American person, excuse me, there's a, you know, white

Janice Porter: 00:17:16

person, there's a Native American. Like, they're all in

Janice Porter: 00:17:19

the same, you know, they make sure that everybody's there, but

Janice Porter: 00:17:23

it seems so obvious that they're

Celeste Warren: 00:17:27

doing that. Well, yeah, I don't mean to be

Celeste Warren: 00:17:30

No, no, no, no. Ashley, it's good conversation. Janice, I

Celeste Warren: 00:17:34

think, from the standpoint of any business, and if you want to

Celeste Warren: 00:17:41

take the pharmaceutical industry, patients are so

Celeste Warren: 00:17:45

diverse around the world, of course, and there are and

Celeste Warren: 00:17:49

pharmaceutical organizations, they have to make sure that

Celeste Warren: 00:17:52

they're reaching patients and they're meeting the needs of

Celeste Warren: 00:17:55

patients, because we know that there are a lot of different

Celeste Warren: 00:17:58

health inequities that exist. Yes, true. A lot of challenges

Celeste Warren: 00:18:02

that exist and and what happens in in different cultures around

Celeste Warren: 00:18:10

health and health outcomes is very, very different depending

Celeste Warren: 00:18:14

on that culture. You know, in in many cultures, especially the

Celeste Warren: 00:18:18

Black and Brown culture, Latino and Hispanic and black culture.

Celeste Warren: 00:18:22

They don't necessarily, when they're not feeling well,

Celeste Warren: 00:18:25

jumping, Go, get in the car and go to a hospital or go to go to

Celeste Warren: 00:18:29

the doctor. They they they ask around their family, they ask

Celeste Warren: 00:18:33

around to their close friends, etc. And that's just a simple,

Celeste Warren: 00:18:37

you know, simple example. But the the research that has to go

Celeste Warren: 00:18:42

into understanding the different patient segments and saying, How

Celeste Warren: 00:18:46

can we reach them? Is really, really critical. It's really,

Celeste Warren: 00:18:49

really critical in order to be able to meet the needs and the

Celeste Warren: 00:18:52

world is changing from a demographic standpoint, the

Celeste Warren: 00:18:59

growth of various different identities is really crucial,

Celeste Warren: 00:19:04

especially in this next generation. And you know, the

Celeste Warren: 00:19:07

Generation X as well that is getting older. And so we know

Celeste Warren: 00:19:11

that in Generation Y, I mean, they're in their 40s right now.

Celeste Warren: 00:19:15

You know, remember that just a few years ago, we thought of

Celeste Warren: 00:19:19

them as these, as these young, young, young, young people. But

Celeste Warren: 00:19:23

that's not the case anymore. And so as we are learning about the

Celeste Warren: 00:19:26

different generations and the intersectionality of all of the

Celeste Warren: 00:19:30

identities, it becomes really, really critical. And so that

Celeste Warren: 00:19:33

that's it. When you study the world and you study the

Celeste Warren: 00:19:37

different segments, you know how diverse the world is and you

Celeste Warren: 00:19:41

have to, you have to make sure that that comes through,

Celeste Warren: 00:19:44

otherwise you lose a whole lot of different people.

Janice Porter: 00:19:47

Okay, that makes sense. All right. Let's talk

Janice Porter: 00:19:50

about relationships for a moment. How does approaching DEA

Janice Porter: 00:19:53

dei sorry, from a relationship building mindset change the way

Janice Porter: 00:19:59

a business? Owner might show up, whether with clients, business

Janice Porter: 00:20:02

partners or team members.

Celeste Warren: 00:20:05

Yeah, you know, we have to make sure that as

Celeste Warren: 00:20:10

leaders and as business people, that we are approaching people

Celeste Warren: 00:20:16

in a way where we're meeting them where they are. And so what

Celeste Warren: 00:20:21

I like to say is that the first engagement or interaction with

Celeste Warren: 00:20:26

them is one of self of discovery, discovery of that

Celeste Warren: 00:20:30

person, but also a little bit of self discovery as well, because

Celeste Warren: 00:20:34

you're learning about someone who is different from you.

Celeste Warren: 00:20:39

They're they have different perspectives. They identify.

Celeste Warren: 00:20:41

They may identify differently than you do, different life

Celeste Warren: 00:20:45

experiences. And so the first, the initial exchange, should be

Celeste Warren: 00:20:49

one of discovery, both of them and of yourself as you grow and

Celeste Warren: 00:20:53

you learn. And then once you have that, that that

Celeste Warren: 00:20:57

understanding of meeting them, where they are and understanding

Celeste Warren: 00:21:01

about them, then it's basically, what do they need to succeed?

Celeste Warren: 00:21:06

What do they need and what's getting in the way? What are the

Celeste Warren: 00:21:09

obstacles and the barriers that are getting in the way of them

Celeste Warren: 00:21:12

being able to achieve whatever it is that is that they need to

Celeste Warren: 00:21:16

either from a leadership standpoint, as far as career

Celeste Warren: 00:21:19

aspirations, from a business standpoint, as far as what are

Celeste Warren: 00:21:22

their needs from a customer standpoint, but you got to have

Celeste Warren: 00:21:26

that dialog and that that honest and develop the trust too. Trust

Celeste Warren: 00:21:30

is so important, as you know, Janice in relationships,

Celeste Warren: 00:21:33

building that trust, and you don't do it by just performative

Celeste Warren: 00:21:37

things. You have to really dig deep and say, Okay, how do I

Celeste Warren: 00:21:41

What is my engagement? How do I learn about what what your needs

Celeste Warren: 00:21:45

are, what's getting in the way of you being successful, and

Celeste Warren: 00:21:49

what do you need from me,

Janice Porter: 00:21:52

and what's getting in the way from myself,

Janice Porter: 00:21:56

Yes, to being able to help, right? And what's coming, self

Janice Porter: 00:22:00

discovery, right? You're right, and that's what's coming to mind

Janice Porter: 00:22:03

now. More is because the world has changed so much, and you

Janice Porter: 00:22:07

mentioned you didn't say it right in this term. How did you

Janice Porter: 00:22:11

say it? But it's the gender, how they identify, is what you said,

Janice Porter: 00:22:15

Yeah, and that's big these days. That's and, well, I didn't grow

Janice Porter: 00:22:19

up with that, right? There wasn't that gender diversity. So

Janice Porter: 00:22:23

to speak openly anyway, you know. So there's a lot to learn

Janice Porter: 00:22:29

and a lot to learn about yourself around when, you know,

Janice Porter: 00:22:32

learning about these things, right? It's funny. I'm watching

Janice Porter: 00:22:36

the second time I've said to say this today. It's funny. I'm

Janice Porter: 00:22:39

watching a show on Netflix that I didn't watch the first time

Janice Porter: 00:22:43

around, and I don't know why, but I'm, like, immersed in it

Janice Porter: 00:22:47

now, and I'm loving it. And that's Downton Abbey. And I

Janice Porter: 00:22:49

don't know if it's anything you would have ever watched, but

Janice Porter: 00:22:52

Downton Abbey is a show basically set in England. Are

Janice Porter: 00:22:56

you familiar with the show? Yeah, like six seasons, and it's

Janice Porter: 00:23:00

like takes place from 1914 I think, before the First World

Janice Porter: 00:23:04

War, or around just before the First World War to, I don't know

Janice Porter: 00:23:09

how far they go, but second world war, I'm guessing, because

Janice Porter: 00:23:12

I'm not quite there yet. But the things that change, and the

Janice Porter: 00:23:16

English aristocracy, which is what the family, the upstairs,

Janice Porter: 00:23:21

downstairs kind of thing, the maids, servants, and then the

Janice Porter: 00:23:24

aristocracy and the matriarch, who was played by Maggie Smith,

Janice Porter: 00:23:28

who's the most amazing actress, and I swear she has all the best

Janice Porter: 00:23:32

lines in the whole show, because she's so funny and sarcastic,

Janice Porter: 00:23:36

even though she's saying it in a serious way, because this is all

Janice Porter: 00:23:40

she knows, and that's to do with what you know, like, I'm going

Janice Porter: 00:23:45

overnight to London, but I won't what I can't go if my, you know,

Janice Porter: 00:23:51

if my lady's maid can't come with me, because, God forbid, I

Janice Porter: 00:23:54

should have to undress myself, you know, like, I mean, that

Janice Porter: 00:23:58

wasn't her words, but the mentality is so set in their way

Janice Porter: 00:24:03

that it's hard to change, and the older they are, the harder

Janice Porter: 00:24:06

the changes that are coming are, and that's a microcosm of what's

Janice Porter: 00:24:11

really happening now that I'm watching on TV, and it's just

Janice Porter: 00:24:14

really interesting. What sets people off then and what sets

Janice Porter: 00:24:17

people off now? We've come a long way, but we still have a

Janice Porter: 00:24:20

long way to go. For sure, yes, yeah, so that's

Celeste Warren: 00:24:23

exactly the case. We have a long way to go,

Janice Porter: 00:24:28

and we see it in our children and grandchildren.

Janice Porter: 00:24:30

For me, you know that color, they don't see color the way we

Janice Porter: 00:24:34

did when we were growing up, at least, that's my experience, and

Janice Porter: 00:24:39

just the whole society is,

Celeste Warren: 00:24:41

yeah, they see intersectionality. They see a

Celeste Warren: 00:24:44

lot of different things in one person, the younger generation.

Celeste Warren: 00:24:50

My I have a son and daughter. My son is 22 my daughter's 24 and,

Celeste Warren: 00:24:56

you know, just listening to them talk and engaging in

Celeste Warren: 00:24:59

conversation with. Them, they don't. That's the difference, I

Celeste Warren: 00:25:03

think, between their generation and past generations, by our

Celeste Warren: 00:25:07

generation. We, you know, when I was growing up, it was black,

Celeste Warren: 00:25:12

white. You know, my father was the first black teacher in his

Celeste Warren: 00:25:17

area and first black principal. We didn't, we didn't necessarily

Celeste Warren: 00:25:22

talk about Latino, Hispanic, Asian,

Unknown: 00:25:27

etc, etc. And it was, you know, it was just really

Celeste Warren: 00:25:31

sort of two dimensional, almost. That's

Celeste Warren: 00:25:34

true. And I The difference now is they see people in so in that

Celeste Warren: 00:25:41

intersectionality and that so many different dimensions and

Celeste Warren: 00:25:44

identities in one person. And you know, I've learned that too

Celeste Warren: 00:25:48

throughout the years as the chief diversity inclusion

Celeste Warren: 00:25:52

officer, learning about different cultures and different

Celeste Warren: 00:25:55

different people and different communities and groups of people

Celeste Warren: 00:25:58

that this generation, you're not one thing. You're not pigeon

Celeste Warren: 00:26:03

holed into this particular identity. And it's a beautiful

Celeste Warren: 00:26:07

thing, because it just, you know, you're so many different

Celeste Warren: 00:26:11

things and so many possibilities. It's just, it's

Celeste Warren: 00:26:16

really a wonderful horizon that they're that they're going to

Celeste Warren: 00:26:19

just be just going through their

Janice Porter: 00:26:22

journey. And I think that I just want to

Janice Porter: 00:26:25

mention that, and you can mention about it is the work

Janice Porter: 00:26:29

that you're doing with your nonprofit, because your children

Janice Porter: 00:26:32

are involved in that as well. Correct called destination stem.

Janice Porter: 00:26:37

And can you talk about that for a little bit? Because I think

Janice Porter: 00:26:39

that's really important work too. The fact that you're doing

Janice Porter: 00:26:42

it with your kids is amazing.

Celeste Warren: 00:26:45

Yes, we started destination stem my daughter

Celeste Warren: 00:26:47

Christina, my son Steven. We started it four years ago. And

Celeste Warren: 00:26:54

what it does, it's a nonprofit to get students of color and

Celeste Warren: 00:26:57

students in need interested in the STEM related fields. So

Celeste Warren: 00:27:03

science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and

Celeste Warren: 00:27:07

you know, when you look in in especially in the United States,

Celeste Warren: 00:27:12

you see that there is not, there's there's not strong

Celeste Warren: 00:27:16

representation of people of color in those fields, right?

Celeste Warren: 00:27:20

And so you have to go all the way back to elementary school,

Celeste Warren: 00:27:25

middle school, junior high school, high school, and and get

Celeste Warren: 00:27:29

students of color interested in those STEM related fields where

Celeste Warren: 00:27:34

they might have shied away from it they didn't have that hard

Celeste Warren: 00:27:39

enough

Janice Porter: 00:27:39

well, or they didn't have the the role models,

Janice Porter: 00:27:44

the

Celeste Warren: 00:27:44

role models, exactly, yeah, they didn't have

Celeste Warren: 00:27:47

the role models. And they didn't, they couldn't look up

Celeste Warren: 00:27:49

and say, well, there's somebody who looks like me with a white

Celeste Warren: 00:27:53

doctor's coat on right? Or, you know, they didn't see, and so

Celeste Warren: 00:27:56

they didn't see the possibility. And so what we want to do is

Celeste Warren: 00:28:00

expose them to people who look like them that are in STEM

Celeste Warren: 00:28:04

related fields. We want to provide them with education

Celeste Warren: 00:28:06

programs and and scholarships as well for high school seniors

Celeste Warren: 00:28:12

that are going to pursue STEM and just get them aware of and

Celeste Warren: 00:28:16

understanding that that's a that's a path that you could

Celeste Warren: 00:28:19

potentially take, that would, that we hope that would they

Celeste Warren: 00:28:24

would be interested in. So that's what we do. And we're

Celeste Warren: 00:28:26

really, really excited. We love the work that we do in that

Celeste Warren: 00:28:30

space. It's so fulfilling.

Janice Porter: 00:28:32

Oh yes, I'm sure that's amazing. If someone's

Janice Porter: 00:28:35

listening is feeling overwhelmed by the weight of getting it all

Janice Porter: 00:28:39

right, where do you recommend they start? I'm going to say

Janice Porter: 00:28:42

your book probably, but yeah,

Celeste Warren: 00:28:45

the first, especially the first book, How

Celeste Warren: 00:28:47

to be a diversity inclusion ambassador, because you

Celeste Warren: 00:28:50

basically, you don't want to be overwhelmed, but you want to

Celeste Warren: 00:28:55

start with just your self discovery and really

Celeste Warren: 00:28:58

understanding what your strengths are, and what your

Celeste Warren: 00:29:02

areas for development are, in the area of diversity and

Celeste Warren: 00:29:05

inclusion. So once you you sort of said, Okay, well, what are my

Celeste Warren: 00:29:08

skills? What am I? What are my capabilities? What am I good at?

Celeste Warren: 00:29:11

What am I not good at? What do I know? What I What don't I know?

Celeste Warren: 00:29:15

You start with yourself first, and then you sort of then start

Celeste Warren: 00:29:21

looking around at your your span of influence, your peers, your

Celeste Warren: 00:29:25

friends, and start having and engaging in conversations with

Celeste Warren: 00:29:29

them as well, especially colleagues who identify

Celeste Warren: 00:29:33

differently than you do. And so you've educated yourself and

Celeste Warren: 00:29:38

then start to really open the dialog in conversations with

Celeste Warren: 00:29:42

others. And you can do that, you know, even in a workspace, you

Celeste Warren: 00:29:45

can say, hey, you know, let's get together for lunch. Let's

Celeste Warren: 00:29:48

bring our lunch to a conference room or two and just have a

Celeste Warren: 00:29:51

conversation, or get, you know, send out an article, link to an

Celeste Warren: 00:29:54

article or something, and say, Hey, we're going to talk it.

Celeste Warren: 00:29:56

It's a little bit easier than the book club thing, because you

Celeste Warren: 00:29:59

don't have to wade. Through a whole right boy, and just open

Celeste Warren: 00:30:02

up a dialog with with people that you're friends with, you

Celeste Warren: 00:30:05

know, over lunch, right?

Janice Porter: 00:30:07

Everybody's everything's a sound bite now,

Janice Porter: 00:30:09

anyway, so, yeah, that's it.

Celeste Warren: 00:30:12

And so, you know, and just doing, do things

Celeste Warren: 00:30:14

where you look around you and your organization or your firm

Celeste Warren: 00:30:18

or wherever you're at your school, and start noticing

Celeste Warren: 00:30:22

things and saying, Okay, well, why is this happening? Or this

Celeste Warren: 00:30:27

really, isn't really inclusive, or this happened at this

Celeste Warren: 00:30:31

meeting, or this happened in this setting. And start, once

Celeste Warren: 00:30:35

you start, you've educated yourself, and you start absorb

Celeste Warren: 00:30:38

observing things. Then you you start doing things, you know,

Celeste Warren: 00:30:43

and it doesn't have to be these huge, monumental, pounding your

Celeste Warren: 00:30:47

fist on the table things. It can just be little things where, you

Celeste Warren: 00:30:50

know, you're in a meeting and someone gets marginalized, or

Celeste Warren: 00:30:55

they get talked over their ideas and paid attention to. You can

Celeste Warren: 00:30:58

just say, hey, you know Janice, that was a really good idea that

Celeste Warren: 00:31:02

you, you brought up a few minutes ago. Can you talk a

Celeste Warren: 00:31:04

little bit about that? I'm kind of curious about it. And, you

Celeste Warren: 00:31:07

know, getting people to just sort of, you've sent a message,

Celeste Warren: 00:31:11

and you've also created the learning moment in that writing

Celeste Warren: 00:31:14

that you've done. Oh, I

Janice Porter: 00:31:15

can hear you a lot, no, but it's ingrained in

Janice Porter: 00:31:18

you, and that's what's so wonderful. I can hear it with

Janice Porter: 00:31:20

everything that you say and and for those of us who don't have

Janice Porter: 00:31:25

it, you know, immediately come off of our lips, there is some

Janice Porter: 00:31:30

first awareness, like you said, in discovery and then intention

Janice Porter: 00:31:36

needed to to improve the situation. I get that. That's

Janice Porter: 00:31:40

great. So last question about this, in your experience, what's

Janice Porter: 00:31:45

the biggest reward that comes when a business owner leads with

Janice Porter: 00:31:48

inclusion and equity at the heart of what they do?

Celeste Warren: 00:31:51

Oh, gosh, it's, I call it the the employee

Celeste Warren: 00:31:55

ripple effect, okay? And I've seen it so many, times, and it's

Celeste Warren: 00:32:01

so beautiful where there. And I'll give you an example.

Celeste Warren: 00:32:05

There's a young lady. She was a scientist in the lab, so she's

Celeste Warren: 00:32:09

just sitting there. She's at her desk every day with her beakers

Celeste Warren: 00:32:13

and her vials and all that. And that's what she did, an

Celeste Warren: 00:32:18

introvert as well, sure, but so innovative, and how she thought

Celeste Warren: 00:32:25

about what she does while she's sitting at that bench. And so I

Celeste Warren: 00:32:32

had the opportunity to meet her at one of, one of one of the

Celeste Warren: 00:32:36

events, and we started talking, and she had all these really

Celeste Warren: 00:32:40

great ideas. And she said, You know, I was thinking about this,

Celeste Warren: 00:32:45

and I was thinking about that, and, you know, in patients like

Celeste Warren: 00:32:48

that look like this, or the patients this, I've know,

Celeste Warren: 00:32:50

they're experiencing these different things. And I said,

Celeste Warren: 00:32:53

Well, have you talked to your your manager about it? And she

Celeste Warren: 00:32:55

was like, Oh no. She doesn't want to hear about it. You know,

Celeste Warren: 00:32:58

they don't want to hear about it. They they would just tell me

Celeste Warren: 00:33:01

to go back to my job and just do what I'm supposed to do. And I

Celeste Warren: 00:33:04

said, You know what? I want you to talk to somebody else that

Celeste Warren: 00:33:12

would be very interested in what you have to say. And so I

Celeste Warren: 00:33:18

brought her into a discussion, you know, just lunch, really

Celeste Warren: 00:33:21

informal, with someone who was over another part of an

Celeste Warren: 00:33:26

organization that deals with patient and understanding

Celeste Warren: 00:33:29

patients, and they had the conversation, and all of a

Celeste Warren: 00:33:34

sudden, the idea just started blooming. And she took it to

Celeste Warren: 00:33:38

another person, and took it to another person, and it became

Celeste Warren: 00:33:42

not just a project, but an assignment. And she got a new

Celeste Warren: 00:33:46

job and a new title, and she's now working on this, this

Celeste Warren: 00:33:51

initiative that is saving the lives of 10s of 1000s, hundreds

Celeste Warren: 00:33:55

of 1000s of different people over the course of just a couple

Celeste Warren: 00:34:00

of years, and you know, she went from this quiet person to this,

Celeste Warren: 00:34:05

this wonderful, wonderful leader and an innovative person who's

Celeste Warren: 00:34:11

saving lives. And it started with inclusive leadership. It

Celeste Warren: 00:34:17

started with someone paying attention to her, listening to

Celeste Warren: 00:34:21

her, empowering her, giving her the tools and the resources she

Celeste Warren: 00:34:26

needed to sort of see this to fruition, and then guiding her.

Celeste Warren: 00:34:32

And that's what, you know, connecting her with this, this

Celeste Warren: 00:34:34

person, that's what they did. And it just grew. She just grew.

Celeste Warren: 00:34:40

And to sit there and watch her over the course of these couple

Celeste Warren: 00:34:43

years, it was just phenomenal. And so it wasn't just something

Celeste Warren: 00:34:47

that was good for her, but it would it ends up being great for

Celeste Warren: 00:34:51

hundreds of 1000s of people.

Janice Porter: 00:34:53

Yeah, as she grew as a person, gained confidence

Janice Porter: 00:34:56

as people trusted her, and she began to blossom. That's really

Janice Porter: 00:35:00

exciting. Yeah, she'll be, she'll, she'll be writing a book

Janice Porter: 00:35:05

someday. Yes, he will. This has been so wonderful. I really hear

Janice Porter: 00:35:10

the passion in your voice about the work that you do. I really

Janice Porter: 00:35:13

do, and I encourage my audience to to check out your book. Where

Janice Porter: 00:35:18

can they find the truth about equity?

Celeste Warren: 00:35:21

They can find it on amazon.com and it's also in

Celeste Warren: 00:35:25

bookstores across the globe. Oh, that's also, yeah, and also on

Celeste Warren: 00:35:30

my website, www, dot CRW diversity.com the CRW is my

Celeste Warren: 00:35:37

initial Celeste Renee Warren, CRW diversity.com and you

Celeste Warren: 00:35:42

there's a link to the book there as well.

Janice Porter: 00:35:46

I will put all that in the show notes so people

Janice Porter: 00:35:49

can check it out. And I want to give a huge thanks to you,

Janice Porter: 00:35:53

Celeste, for bringing clarity and calm to a topic that can

Janice Porter: 00:35:56

feel complicated and reminding us that equity at its core is

Janice Porter: 00:36:01

about how we show up for each other. It really is, I know. So

Janice Porter: 00:36:05

I do highly recommend Celeste book, and I encourage you to go

Janice Porter: 00:36:10

check out her work, and always remember to my audience, thank

Janice Porter: 00:36:15

you for listening. If you enjoyed today's episode, please

Janice Porter: 00:36:18

share it with someone who else, who someone else who values

Janice Porter: 00:36:21

building relationships that matter and remember to stay

Janice Porter: 00:36:25

connected and be remembered you.